Page 50 of The Promise of Jenny Jones
She couldn’t help it. She strained through the darkness, trying to see if he really did have an erection. When he noticed where she was looking, he groaned and shook his head. Another rush of color heated her cheeks.
“Well, you could have been lying,” she snapped. But she was pleased to notice that he was not. In fact, she felt wildly flattered and slightly astounded that he was in the same agitated state of arousal as she was. Flipping open her pistol, she ran her thumb over the chamber, double-checking the load of bullets. “Forget hankering and start thinking about that cousin dozing by the fire. Let’s go.”
“Concentrate. Focus,” he hissed before he ran a hot finger down her throat. An instant later he had faded into the shadows.
She tried to concentrate on the matter at hand, but her thoughts kept flipping around erections and kisses and touches and feverish speculation about a hard-eyed cowboy’s body and intentions. She would have sworn that her throat burned along the line he’d drawn with his fingertip.
“Well crud on a crust.” After giving her head a vigorous shake, she dropped into a crouch and moved up toward the embers glowing in the cousins’ fire pit, darting from one clump of low cover to the next. She promised firmly that she would not jeopardize this action by getting stuck on distracting memories of his hand curving around her breast.
Before she managed completely to thrust the recollection out of her mind, she found herself inside the campsite, practically on top of the sleeping cousin. Glancing up, she saw Ty rise behind the cousin dozing before the fire. His hand clapped over the man’s mouth and he dragged him backward.
The noise of the scuffle between Ty and the first cousin was slight but enough that when she gazed down at the man in the bedroll, his eyes flicked open, instantly alert. An explosion ripped through his blankets. If she hadn’t dived to the side when she saw his eyes, the son of a bitch would have plugged her. Rolling up on her knees, she fanned the hammer of her pistol and fired. To make sure she’d hit her mark, she jerked back his blanket, tossed his gun into the darkness, then slapped a hand on his throat and checked for a pulse.
“Good riddance.”
The force of a small body flying out of the darkness knocked her on her back in the dirt. Swearing, teeth bared, she freed her arm and jammed the barrel of her pistol into… Graciela’s ribs. “Kid! Damn it, I almost shot you.”
Struggling to sit up, she tried to shove Graciela aside, but Graciela wouldn’t budge. A full minute elapsed before she understood the kid was not fighting her. Graciela had wrapped her arms around Jenny’s neck, and she clung like paint on a fence, sobbing and babbling hysterically. After a hasty check to reassure herself that Graciela was unharmed, Jenny felt like babbling herself. Getting the kid back in one piece made her almost feel like weeping.
Ty loomed out of the darkness, grimly satisfied, shoving his gun into his holster. Jenny met his glance, returned his hard-eyed nod, then turned her attention to the kid.
“Kid! Kid, slow down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
Graciela pulled back an inch and rubbed both hands against wet eyes. “My fricking cousins tried tokillme!” Jenny didn’t grab her fast enough to prevent her from shifting to look at the dead cousin in his bedroll. But the kid didn’t flinch. The tears rolling down her cheeks were not for the dead cousins.
Turning back to Jenny, she talked a hundred words a minute, waving her arms, her eyes huge. “They turned snakes loose on me!” A shudder of remembered horror trembled down her body. “Snakes this big!” Her arms flew open wide. “Then Carlos tried to choke me, but Favre wouldn’t let him, and they got into a fight and killed each other. And I was so scared and so afraid you wouldn’t come, but I knew you would, but you didn’t, and I thought they’d kill me for fricking sure!”
She threw herself into Jenny’s arms, sobbing again, clinging like a burr. Jenny waved her hands in the air, then patted Graciela’s back awkwardly, amazed by how deep down, damned good it felt to have the kid’s little warm body in her arms. “It’s finished now,” she murmured over and over. “I’m here and you’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you.”
When she glanced up, Ty was standing over her, fists on his hips, scowling.
“What?” she asked, frowning up at him.
“Did you hear what my niece said?”
“She said she finally believes that her rotten cousins were trying to kill her, just like I’ve been telling her all along.” She didn’t understand his angry expression.
“She said her ‘fricking’ cousins were trying to kill her for ‘fricking’ sure.”
“Well, thank God they didn’t get the job done. It sounds like they tried, the bastards. Did you hear what she said? The sons of bitches turned snakes loose on her. Snakes!”
“Jenny, my niece said ‘fricking.’ ” He stared at her, then cast a meaningful glance at Graciela’s heaving back.
“Graciela, you’ve got to stop crying now.” Jenny tried to peel the kid off her chest. “You got my bad arm caught between us, and it’s hurting like hell.”
Reluctantly, Graciela released her grip and edged backward a step. She cast anxious glances between Jenny and Ty. “Are they all dead?”
“Those men aren’t going to hurt you ever again,” Ty said gently. Kneeling, he sat back on his heels and studied the kid’s face. “Are you all right?”
This time the kid flung herself on the cowboy’s neck and burst into fresh sobs, interspersed with an incoherent story involving snakes as long and thick as a fence rail. Ty looked as surprised as Jenny had when Graciela had jumped into her arms, then he did the same thing she had done. He held Graciela’s sobbing body, awkwardly patted her back, and murmured soothing sounds deep in his throat.
“I was so scared of the fricking snakes! One of them tried to crawl up my leg, and—”
“Honey, wait. Listen a minute.” Ty eased her away from his shoulder so he could gaze into her eyes. “Nice little ladies don’t say words like fricking.”
So that’s what he was irked about. Pulling to her feet, Jenny knocked the dust off her hat, then settled it on her head.
Graciela looked at Ty, then at Jenny. “Jenny says fricking all the time.”
